In Caribbean nations whose economies often rely on tourism, on a visibility that is promoted by paradisiacal images, light itself (and who gets to be seen within it) is a precious resource. Glitter, in its chaotic and unruly refraction of light (paired with its stubborn stickability), offers an entryway into specific histories of resistance in the Caribbean, and into the way contemporary artists of African descent from the region command attention through a “visual economy of light.”[2] Glitter has the capacity to offer its own sort of shimmering reparation for those whose representations and narratives have historically been co-opted by the same centuries-old colonial racial and class propaganda that drives the Caribbean tourism industry today.
